Battle royale for India's MMRCA crown

Flight International ^ | 31/01/11 | Greg Waldron

[sukhoi-30mki]

Battle royale for India's MMRCA crown

By Greg Waldron

An air show on the scale of next week's Aero India is bound to throw up surprises, but one certainty is a massive push by the six contenders in India's pivotal medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) competition.

Delegations from Boeing, Dassault, Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin, RSK MiG and Saab will number in the dozens, if not hundreds, and no expense will be spared on chalets, booths, flight simulators and pricey flight demonstrations.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the $10 billion MMRCA competition. With an order of 126 fighters on the cards, and likely follow-on orders, the winning programme could see its life extended well into the next decade. As for the losers, most will end their production runs in the middle of the decade as the world's major air forces enter the era of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

© Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin's F-16IN Super Viper has set its sights on India's MMRCA contest

The contenders are diverse. US airframer Boeing is offering its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and arch-rival Lockheed Martin the F-16IN Super Viper - essentially an F-16 Block 60. Sweden's Saab has the Gripen IN, Dassault is seeking its first foreign order for the Rafale, Eurofighter is pitching the Typhoon, and Russia is offering the RSK MiG-35.

Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh's recent appointment diary underlines the stakes. Foreign leaders including UK prime minister David Cameron, French president Nicholas Sarkozy, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and US president Barack Obama have all trooped to New Delhi recently, intent on building business and defence ties with the subcontinental superpower.